This invention relates generally to transportation methods and systems, and more specifically to methods and systems for transporting wind turbine components by rail.
At least some known wind turbines are disassembled into four types of components such as, but not limited to, rotor blades (“blades”), tower, rotor hubs, and nacelles for transportation. Generally, such wind turbine components are stored in cargo containers and affixed to transport structures such as, but not limited to, railroad cars and/or trucks for transportation to a storage site and/or an assembly site. Such cargo containers facilitate shipping wind turbine components by ship, railroad, and/or truck so that the components may be changed from one transportation mode to another without unloading and/or loading the components from the containers.
At least some known wind turbine components are relatively large as compared to other wind turbine components. Some known wind turbine components such as the towers may be individually disassembled into smaller pieces for transportation. Other wind turbine components such as the blades are substantially unitary precision instruments that remain intact during transportation. As such, the blades may be relatively large (e.g., some exceeding 160 feet in length and 12 feet in width) as compared to other wind turbine components.
Such blades are generally stored within known container structures that contain at least one wind turbine rotor blade entirely within. At least some known container structures that entirely contain two or more blades therein typically orient a root of one blade adjacent a tip of another blade. Because such known containers entirely contain larger loads, such as the blades, known transportation methods and systems facilitate increasing an overall size and/or weight of an overall load supported on the respective railcar. As a result, such known transportation methods and systems also facilitate increasing associated rail transportation costs of larger wind turbines as compared to truck transportation.